“What do you mean by ‘successful’, Sobig?” She had not called him that in years. But now the old nickname came to her tongue perhaps because they were speaking of his future, his success. “What do you mean by ‘successful’, Sobig?”
“Rich. Lots of money.”
“Oh, no, Dirk! No! That’s not success. Roelf—the thing Roelf does—that’s success.”
“Oh, well, if you have money enough you can buy the things he makes, and have ’em. That’s almost as good, isn’t it?”
Midwest University had sprung up almost literally overnight on the property that had been the site of the Midway Plaisance during the World’s Fair in Chicago in ’93. One man’s millions had been the magic wand that, waved over a bare stretch of prairie land, had produced a seat of learning. The university guide book spoke of him reverently as the Founder, capitalizing the word as one does the Deity. The student body spoke of him with somewhat less veneration. They called him Coal-Oil Johnny. He had already given thirty millions to the university and still the insatiable maw of this institute of learning yawned for more. When oil went up a fraction of a cent they said, “Guess Coal-Oil Johnny’s fixing to feed us another million.”
Dirk commenced his studies at Midwest University in the autumn of 1909. His first year was none too agreeable, as is usually the case in first years. He got on well, though. A large proportion of the men students were taking law, which accounts for the great number of real-estate salesmen and insurance agents now doing business in and about Chicago. Before the end of the first semester he was popular. He was a natural-born floor committeeman and badges bloomed in his buttonhole. Merely by donning a ready-made dress suit he could give it a made-to-order air. He had great natural charm of manner. The men liked him, and the girls, too. He learned to say, “Got Pol Econ at ten,” which meant that he took Political Economy at that hour; and “I’d like to cut Psyk,” meant that he was not up on his approaching lesson in Applied Psychology. He rarely “cut” a class. He would have felt that this was unfair and disloyal to his mother. Some of his fellow students joked about this faithfulness to his classes. “Person would think you were an Unclassified,” they said.
The Unclassifieds were made up, for the most part, of earnest and rather middle-aged students whose education was a delayed blooming. They usually were not enrolled for a full course, or were taking double work feverishly. The Classifieds, on the other hand, were the regularly enrolled students, pretty well of an age (between seventeen and twenty-three) who took their education with a sprinkling of sugar. Of the Unclassified students the University catalogue said:
Persons at least twenty-one years of age, not seeking a degree, may be admitted through the office of the University Examiner to the courses of instruction offered in the University, as unclassified students. They shall present evidence of successful experience as a teacher or other valuable educative experience in practical life. . . . They are ineligible for public appearance. . . .
You saw them the Cinderellas and the Smikes of this temple of learning.
The Classifieds and the Unclassifieds rarely mixed. Not age alone, but purpose separated them. The Classifieds, boys and girls, were, for the most part, slim young lads with caps and pipes and sweaters, their talk of football, baseball, girls; slim young girls in sheer shirtwaists with pink ribbons run through the corset covers showing beneath, pleated skirts that switched delightfully as they strolled across the campus arm in arm, their talk of football games, fudge, clothes, boys. They cut classes whenever possible. The Student Body. Midwest turned them out by the hundreds—almost by the link, one might say, as Aug Hempel’s sausage factory turned out its fine plump sausages, each one exactly like the one behind and the one ahead of it. So many hundreds graduated in this year’s class. So many more hundreds to be graduated in next year’s class. Occasionally an unruly sausage burst its skin and was discarded. They attended a university because their parents—thrifty shop-keepers, manufacturers, merchants, or professional men and their good wives—wanted their children to have an education. Were ambitious for them. “I couldn’t have it myself, and always regretted it. Now I want my boy (or girl) to have a good education that’ll fit ’em for the battle of life. This is an age of specialization, let me tell you.”